What is poverty

1
What is poverty

• Lack of Basic amenities
• Basic nutrition 2400
• Lack of shelter
• Medication
• Education /energuy

2
How should we define poverty
3
India poverty line or starvation line

• Year 2004-2005
• Rural India Rs 356 / month / person
• That is less than Rs 12 per day
• And you need to earn 2400 cal
• Urban India Rs 538 / month / person
• That is less than Rs 18 per day
• And you need to earn 2100 cal

4
Cont

• Say, 2 meals a day
• Rural India available less than Rs 6 per meal
  per day
• To earn 1200 cal per meal
• Urban India available less than Rs 9 per meal
  per day
• To earn 1050 cal per meal

5
Let us build a small food basket of staple food
items (1 meal)
6
This take the total cost to

• Rs 21
• per day per person to feed him 2100 calories
• This is just the survival cost
• And we have still not included cost of
• cooking fuel

7
And our govt. defines poverty line

• _at_ Rs 18 per day per person, maximum
• Gross underestimation

8
And contraction because

• Minimum wage range in India
• Say Bihar Rs 66 / day
• And in Delhi Rs 134 / day
• National level minimum wage Rs 66 / day
• 11-14 times higher than the poverty line
• And we know the life conditions of these minimum
  wage earners

9
Why cant Planning Commission and Ministry of
Labor work together to find out at least a
reasonable poverty line figure
10
Radical approach is needed to decide how many of
us are actually poor
11
Is food all that is needed for survival

• 60 years
• of independence and we are still to define a
  minimum dignified
• standard of living

12
Let us see if we can derive a poverty figures
13
Components for calculation and their imputed
daily costs
14
Cont..
15
So what is our poverty threshold like
16
Mohan Guruswamy of CPA suggest the poverty line
in India should be .